The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1887-02-25
STREET POLITENESs.

An Essay Toward Proving That Manners
Should Make Women as Well as Men.
The ladies of this city are rapidly
learning to keep to the right on muddy
! crossings, and are also adopting other
| simple courtesies which are putting
/ them to the front as the handsomest
/ and best of the sisterhood in America,
/ but occasionally an obstinate, strong
minded, contrary specimen is encoun-
! tered, who will persist in ambling to
! the left, or doing some other equally
| inconsistent and unnecessary act. A
! gentleman who has travelled extensively
! in Europe remarked to a reporter, while
! discussing some of the characteristics
| of the gentler sex, that the men of
/ America are largely to blame for the
/ disposition of some of the fair creatures
/ to take this surrender of every thing as
| a matter of course, for they have so
/ long treated them with such gallantry
that many have been educated into re-
! garding as right what is simply 81
! courtesy. In Paris or Vienna, for in
stance, if n street car be crowded with
males, and lady should enter, not one
of them would venture to offer seat,
and the lady herself would not expect
| it. The women there have never been
taught that they had any more rights
/ than a man, and for that reason, if an
| American should extend q courtesy he
! is accustomed to at home, he would be
stared at as an Anak, and even the lady
/ herself would be tempted to regard it
as impertinent. And then he said that
j the ungallantries to the ladies to be
/ met with across the Continent were
! sufficient to keep an Americans blood
! boiling, and he never wanted to see
| similar rudeness extend to this country,
! although the ladies sometimes invited
! it by the matter-of-fact way in which
! they pre-empted every thing in the line
of accommodation to which their fancy
| inclined.
/ 1t was Florence Marryat who once
/ wrote that Americans excelled all ma
| tons in attention to their women, but
/ that the American ladies were the
most unmannerly; but she awarded the
/ palm of boorishness to the men of her
/ own nationality. which is English. In
| New York, and even I'D cultivated BOs-
! ton. a churlish treatment of ladies in
"a public conveyance Is beginning 10
/ make itself felt, and in the former city
the Sun sneerin gly speaks of an Incl
/ dent on a car, where a gentleman sur
rendered his seat ~ a ''lost art y The
average American, however, whether
rich or lowly, is proud of chance to
be tender and chivalric to a lady, and
he is amply compensated if his courte-
sly be recognized az courtesy, and not
accepted as a right.
1t seems like a little thing to keep to
the right on muddy crossing, but there
are many ladies walking abreast who
! never stop to consider the limited pas
sage, and coolly appropriate it as they
/ would a seat in car. There are men,
too, who do this thing, but as a gener-
! al thing they do it at the risk of being
pushed to one side. for they know that
while the average man win take good
deal off a woman he viii stand no fool
ishness from one Of his own sex, and
| will elbow him into the mud without
! the slightest compunction of conscience
/ If he neglected TO obey the common
law of keeping 10 the right IyaaSanap-
| otis Nos0s.